"I am not particularly anxious to be turned away from the door, and I see no reason why I should be treated better than Mrs Maitland. The servant is evidently entrusted with a general message. I think the best thing will be to send father across on Saturday afternoon, to see if the rule applies to ladies only. If Mr Vanburgh really wants to be quiet, we can't force ourselves upon him. I am sorry the Grange is not let to more interesting people, but we must make the best of it. It has evidently been chosen as a museum in which to store a collection of art treasures, and, after all, you must remember it is no more closed to us now than it has been for years past." "Dear me, no! We can live without the Grange, I hope. Let the poor old dear shut himself up if he likes. He will be the loser, not we!" cried Mrs Maitland, laughing. That was the worst of grown-up people! They were so aggravatingly reasonable and resigned! CHAPTER THIRTEEN. DIOGENES AT THE WINDOW. After a storm comes a calm. As in Nature, so in the affairs of human life, and the Rendells found another example of the truth of the old adage in the month following Lilias's engagement. Nothing seemed to happen; even the interest which had been taken in the new occupant of the Grange died away after Mr Rendell's failure to gain admission, and one day jog--trotted away after another in monotonous fashion. They were dreary days to Maud, but at the end of even the longest and dreariest she acknowledged to herself that the battle was not so hopeless as she had expected. The trouble was there, the difficult moments arose, the quick stabs of pain following happy memories, but she herself was strengthened to bear them in a manner which she could not have believed possible. Maud was one of the sweet, open characters who are religious by nature; but though she had asked for God's help every night of her life, she had never been conscious of its presence in such abundance as in this hour of trial. It almost awed her at times to realise her own strength, and this testing of the power of faith was a ray of light shining out of the darkness. Passages from the Bible which she had known all her life became suddenly instinct with new and wonderful meaning; the words of Christ went straight home to her sore heart and comforted it as no earthly power could do. The new communion had a joy and a sweetness which she had never known before, and her character grew daily stronger and deeper under the influence of sorrow nobly borne. Her mother's tenderness, moreover, manifested itself in a hundred little schemes for her distraction, and Nan's demonstrative affection heartened her for the fight. The world was not all lost because Ned had chosen another; and, so far from neglecting her old duties, Maud worked away more industriously than ever, finding her best medicine in a busy, occupied life.